Quest for truth: The Da Vinci Code

05/07/05

By Sara Lyon,
Staff Writer

The search for the Holy Grail is perhaps the most well known and controversial quest in history.

For centuries, people have searched the globe for the chalice Jesus used at the Last Supper, which was supposedly carried out of the Holy Land by Joseph of Arimathea after the Crucifixion. But what if the Holy Grail isn’t really a grail at all?

When the curator of the Louvre is murdered, symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu find themselves thrown together in what rapidly becomes much more than a search for a killer.
As the baffling riddles the curator left behind begin to unfold, they realize they are on their own Grail quest. However, Langdon and Neveu are not the only ones on the trail, and the stakes are far higher than they realize.

As much as I had heard about Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code over the past year or so, I thought I had a good notion of what it was about. My shock was doubled, therefore, when at the end of the first chapter, I realized that this is a thriller and something of a murder mystery. Not only was the novel not quite what I expected, but I kept asking myself why no one had mentioned the very significant plot element of murder.

As the story progresses, however, the reasons for the omission become more clear.

This isn’t your typical “whodunit.” From the very beginning, the reader knows who the killer is.

What we don’t know is why, and who the mastermind is who orchestrated not only the curator’s death, but the deaths of three other prominent Frenchmen as well - a man we know only as “Teacher.”

Factor in the Holy Grail, and the murder starts slipping into the background, despite being the catalyst for the entire plot.

Brown switches perspective in practically every chapter, taking the reader into the minds of every prominent character in the novel. This keeps the reader off-balance, adding to the story’s excitement, while at the same time giving the reader access to the minds and knowledge of different individuals.

Though Brown selectively withholds most of the information that would identify Teacher and his reasons for having four men killed, the shifts in perspective do help us answer the tantalizing riddles left behind by the Louvre’s curator. Puzzling out these cryptic messages is half the fun of The Da Vinci Code.

This is not a novel to read if you don’t want to be challenged. Between the riddles and the very controversial history involved, it’s going to make you think. But it’s well worth the effort.
I also recommend reading it in front of a computer so you can run searches on Da Vinci’s paintings as they come up in the novel.
What you see might surprise you.

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Posted by Setonian Online at May 7, 2005 09:11 AM